


Battle Plans

by okoriwadsworth



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoriwadsworth/pseuds/okoriwadsworth
Summary: When all hope is lost, Oliver Queen rescues his friend Barry Allen and makes a big decision in the process.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Patty Spivot, Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Nyssa al Ghul/Sara Lance
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	Battle Plans

Battle Plans.

Oliver Queen does his friend Barry Allen a favor, and helps him deal with the Thinker.

(Author’s Note: Oliver Queen is dating Laurel Lance in this situation. How that happened will be explained in the body of the story. Also, the seasons of the Arrow and Flash are synced up. S1 of the Flash was S1 of Arrow, and so on. Finally, this takes place right after Ralph Dibny is claimed by the Thinker.)

Sometimes, Oliver Queen felt like he had won a lottery. He had the love of his life with him, and an extended family that he would move heaven and earth to protect. And when he dropped in to Central City to get the 60-arrow quiver Cisco Ramon had been promising him, he realized he needed to help his friend Barry Allen and the rest of his allies with a problem.

Originally, he wasn’t going to ask anything. Central City’s lightness, and the fact that pretty much every major villain Barry had to deal with up until now was a speedster, usually meant that he didn’t really KNOW what Barry was up against until some earth-wide threat brought them together. And if he did know, he couldn’t have helped. He had found it nearly impossible to mark Barry with an arrow, and he couldn’t imagine that he would have been able to do anything to stop someone who was as fast as Zoom and Savitar apparently were. But still, he should have been here. If only to support Barry, to let him see that there was someone else who GOT IT. Lord knows, during his first year as the Hood, it had been someone understanding what he was going through that helped him become the Green Arrow.

But he could see that the happiness, and the joy that this team thrived on, was gone. His city, and the confederates he had, were darker, sure, but he had always treasured knowing there were people out there who thought this was fun. In this moment, though, none of them looked like they were having any at all. Instead, they looked like they were all barely holding on.

And right now, he knew what he needed to make things right. He needed to talk to the only “normal” person on this team. That was Harry Wells. Sure, this was a Harry Wells from another earth, and preferred the name Harry, but he was at least not a speedster or a meta-human. Honestly, that he could at least accept.

“Wells? What the hell is going on right now? Why does everyone look like their dog has been shot?”

“There’s this guy named the Thinker, and we’ve been playing catch-up to him ever since we got Barry out of the speedforce. Everything we do, he’s prepared for and has a counter for. It’s like playing speed chess against a supercomputer.”

Well damn, Ollie thought. But then, he realized this was good. This, unlike Zoom and Savitar and even Thawne, was an enemy he could actually help with. So, he called the only person he knew who would get it, who understood.

“Laurel? How fast can you get to Central City? Barry needs our help. Call Nyssa and Sara, Shiva too. Call Diggle too. Just leave Thea, Felicity, and Roy. Someone needs to guard the city while we’re gone.”

“Why all of them?”

“He’d do it for us. Imagine if a speedster showed up in Starling City. We’d call him, and he’d help as best he could. It’s past time we returned the favor. Besides, he needs to know about the gift that he gave us.”

**_Four Years Ago,_ **

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Laurel Lance was in Central City, and she wanted nothing more than to not be there. She had been going through a rough time ever since Oliver Queen came back, and all she could think about now was how that damnable man came back into her life and wanted to pretend like it was still normal, like he still wanted her. The anger was so strong that she felt herself losing control of it, erupting at her father and at Oliver and Joanna more and more over smaller and smaller things. And then, one day, she erupted at a client and she KNEW she needed help. So, she took a leave of absence from CNRI and found the Hall Clinic in Central City. From everything she could find out, it was the pre-eminent clinic in the entire country for dealing with anger and trauma. She knew she couldn’t stay in Starling anymore. All she saw, anymore, was Sara and Oliver. And it hurt her to her bones.

So, she went to Central City and worked the program. But one morning, she realized she needed more. She needed a LIFE. With that in her mind, she went out and built one. She decided she wanted to learn how to do something useful, something to burn the anger off besides just talking about him. So, she found a local karate dojo run by a guy named Ted Grant. And she found out something new about herself, something she would never have known otherwise. She loved sparring, and learning how to fight. So soon, she got her white belt and asked for more, more techniques until she was a black belt and Ted Grant was learning new techniques and teaching them to her. Soon, she was finding new gyms and learning everything she could. It became her new outlet and addiction.

She even got a job working as a bartender, and discovered she had both a skill for making drinks and for listening to people’s problems. She liked it. It wasn’t the office life she had when she was in Central City, but it was good.

And every night, before she went to sleep, she worried about Oliver. As her anger faded, she remembered the things she said to him. Worse than that, she remembered how he looked when she said them. Like somehow, he was back on that desert island all over again. She couldn’t leave that being the last thing they ever said to each other.

So, when she went out one night to hear a cover band and then head back to the Hall Clinic, all she was thinking about was getting better and then returning home to settle up with Ollie before doing god knows what else.

And so, when the yellow wave from the particle accelerator came down the street she was on, all she could do was scream. That was all she could think of. And as she passed out, she hoped she wasn’t about to die.

**_Present Day…._ **

\-------------------------------------------------------

Barry Allen popped into Star Labs with a golden burst of lightning behind him, having spent 4 years training and improving his speed until his connection to the speed force was as mature as it could be. But still with all the speed he had gained, dealing with whoever this Thinker was made him feel as slow as he did before he even got super-speed. It always felt like everything they were trying to do was a step behind, and he was getting tired of it.

So, when he walked into the Speed Lab and saw 85% of Team Arrow sitting there with a blackboard, 24 pizzas, a row of textbooks on the greatest strategic and tactical thinkers to ever draw breath, and more than one’s fair share of practice dummies, he admits to getting a little confused.

“Ollie? What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be trying to deal with Darkh? And where’s Felicity?” Barry said, his heart beginning to warm at the thought of finally getting help solving his problem.

“Well, we thought about all the times you helped us. All the things you did out of the kindness of your heart. It’s only right that we help in your time of need, now. Felicity’s back home with Thea and Roy. We think Darkh is out of town, so it’s regular street-level crime for the next little while. They can handle that” said a confident Oliver, knowing everyone here had done their absolute best to make sure the two lovebirds left at home were as ready as they could be. “As far as Felicity, she’s with them too. Besides, your problem needed a more…. Martial bent. But before we go any farther, Nyssa and Shiva haven’t seen your speed. Mind giving a demonstration?”

Smiling, knowing exactly what the Green Arrow is doing, Barry walks over to the pizza boxes and grabs one before sprinting off in a burst of goldenrod-colored lightning and coming back to hand each person in the room a slice before taking the last two for himself and then deciding to eat a whole 2nd pizza.

“How are you this fast?” Nyssa says, joined in open-mouthed shock by Lady Shiva as Barry thought of smiling for a moment before realizing that his two questioners could probably do him serious damage before he was fast enough to move away.

“I was struck by lightning at the same time of a massive scientific achievement. This made me the fastest man alive. But right now, I need your help with the Thinker. What do you guys have in mind?”

Before they can go over the plan, Oliver Queen walks to Barry and hugs him tightly.

“I am **_SO_** sorry I left you to deal with Zoom, and Savitar, all by yourself. But we’re going to stop the Thinker, all of us together, because you’d do it for us.”

**_Four years ago, …_ **

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Barry Allen had just woken up from his 9-month coma in a bed at STAR Labs and realized there was one person he needed to see, one person who was always there for him. And so, he went to the 1st precinct of the Central City Police Department, and found Detective 3rd Grade Patty Spivot. He knew Iris had visited him plenty too, but she had always been like a sister to him. But Patty? Patty had always been different.

From the first day he met her, he was utterly enthralled. She was as smart as him, and got that sometimes you needed to make gallows humor to keep yourself from being completely unable to do your job. More so, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. So, with bravery he knew his father would be proud of, he had asked her out to see the particle accelerator. Then, he got called back to do research for an upcoming murder trial. She offered to sit with him while he worked, but he didn’t want her to be bored out of her mind.

And then, a rainstorm became a thunderstorm which wet the floor of his office through the open window façade. He moved to close the windows with a chain, when a golden-colored lightning bolt hit him square in the chest and sent him flying into a case of chemicals. Before he had passed out, he felt his entire body tingling with electricity and power…. Just like it was right now when he was looking at Patty.

But that wasn’t all. Things were slowing around him, and he could feel speed, raw unadulterated speed, coursing through him. This wasn’t normal. And then, he saw Patty’s RC Cola slowly fall down and spill over. He popped over and grabbed it and flew back to her in what felt like a fraction of a second. And in that moment, he knew he needed to return to STAR Labs and figure out what in the world was going on with him. But he couldn’t leave Patty out of his life anymore. The thought hurt him.

So, again relying on the example of his birth father Henry Allen, he asked Patty to take an unmarked car and drive him to STAR Labs. There were some things he needed to show her.

**_Present Day…._ **

\------------------------------------------------

Not for the 1st time, Barry Allen wondered how in the world it was that such a fundamentally sweet, and big-hearted person, like Laurel Lance ended up being around people who showed the facility towards wartime strategy like Nyssa Lance and Lady Shiva did. But, he supposed, that was why her and Oliver had found each other. Someone like Laurel brought out the best in people, and didn’t even necessarily realize she was doing it.

But as they heard all that the Thinker had done to the Flash, and all that he had lost in the attempt to defeat this man, Barry was happy that she did have these kinds of friends. Because in the eyes of Nyssa Lance and Oliver Queen, he saw hatred and sympathy. Sympathy for Barry, who they did not understand being able to remain so optimistic and light-hearted after losing both his parents, a friend in Eddie Thawne, a mentor in HR Wells, and now a fellow fighter for justice in Ralph Dibny. And, as Nyssa and Oliver primed their tungsten recurve bows by drilling arrow after arrow into practice dummies, he could see hatred for what had been done to him over these 4 years. Not for the first time, the Flash could thank whatever force of nature gave him these powers for allowing him to make friends with everyone who was here.

**_Four Years Ago,_ **

\-------------------------------------------

But when Barry Allen rushed into STAR Labs, Patty by his side the whole time, he saw something he didn’t expect to see. Standing there, in the middle of the cortex, was Laurel Lance. They had met, here and there, whenever Barry had gone out to her bar for drinks after a hard night at the precinct. She had always struck him as sweet, and blessed with a supreme kindness of heart. As it turned out, he had met Oliver Queen, Starling City playboy and someone Laurel talked about more and more, when he “consulted” with him on a couple of cases that looked very much like the impossible he had been chasing since some red-and-yellow blur murdered his mother.

But, he realized, if she was here, and so was he, then they had both been affected by the same thing. They needed to work together to figure out what that thing was.

So, with the agreement of Harry Wells and the rest of the skeleton medical team at STAR Labs, they got to work. Barry had explained the feeling he had had when he first came out of the coma, that feeling like lightning was coursing through him all the time and how it seemed like everything was going too fast or too slow all at once. For her part, Laurel explained that she had this weird constant feeling of a lump in her throat, and that she could also hear whispered conversations like they were right next to her. So, with a shell-shocked Patty riding shotgun, Laurel and Barry were ferried out to an abandoned airstrip in Central City. Thinking quickly, Dr. Wells set up a track of sorts for Barry to test his speed on while instructing Laurel to scream at a decibel meter he had set up at the other end of the track.

In this moment, the Flash and the Black Canary were born. Barry discovered he could run almost 500 miles an hour, and Laurel figured out her scream was the approximate sound of a jet engine. But, knowing this, they both realized the same thing. They had to be heroes. They had to use their new skills to help people. And just ss quickly, Laurel realized she had to go home and see Oliver. There was something not quite right about this Harry Wells fellow, and she didn’t feel like she wanted to be around him anymore than she absolutely had to.

And so, hoping she didn’t burn up, she asked Barry to take her back to Starling City and find Oliver. She was shocked when he told her he knew where Ollie would be.

So, it was with more amusement than she might have found in it normally that Laurel found herself on a roof in Starling City looking eye-to-eye with the Hood. And when she looked into his eyes, really LOOKED, she knew. This was her Oliver. And they would be together as long as he would have her.

**_Present Day……_ **

\-------------------------------------------

The Flash, golden lightning flashing in his eyes, stood in the center of Central City’s town square and…. didn’t run. All he did, again and again, was say “Show yourself, Clifford Devoe.” And eventually, Devoe did.

“You cannot defeat me, Flash. Your mind cannot think, cannot reason, on the level of mine. I do not understand why it is that you continue to play these childish games with me” said Clifford Devoe, every syllable dripping with condescension.

“You’re right, Devoe. **_I_** can’t beat you. But us all together? We can.”

And with that, the plan they came up with falls into place. From Barry’s left, the Black Canary screamed as loud as she had ever screamed before causing Devoe to fall out of his chair at the exact moment the Green Arrow snared him with a cable arrow. Not satisfied with this, though, Nyssa Lance fired a tranquilizer arrow before they drug Devoe back to Star Labs and went through the 2nd part of their plan.

That was a touch more complicated. Harry Wells was starting to lose his intelligence, so it felt odd to have to do something without him there. But they sequestered him, and deputized Oliver and Laurel to keep him company while they used something called a mental activity dampener to allow Barry to make his way through Devoe’s mind and retrieve Ralph Dibny who then helped them both escape and also enabled them to find the good Devoe just before the Thinker killed him for good. With the good Devoe back in control, he used the Thinking Cap to restore the intelligence of Harry Wells and then submitted himself to the custody of A.R.G.U.S., horrified as he was by what he had done.

And, as Patty and Laurel contemplated what was next, Barry and Oliver both got on a knee and proposed to the loves of their lives.

The wedding, though? That’s a story for another time.


End file.
